Once, when working for a large aircraft manufacturing company, a supervisor came to the plane I was working on and told me I had a phone call from my wife.\u00a0 Now this was way before the onslaught of cell phones, so if someone was to be called at work, they would receive the call through the boss\u2019s offices.\u00a0 The bosses didn\u2019t like these calls and so the calls were strongly discouraged, except for emergencies.\u00a0 So now I had a phone call from my wife and I immediately became concerned.\u00a0 Was it my Dad, who had earlier suffered a heart attack?\u00a0 Was my dear wife okay?\u00a0 Could it be that something was wrong with my son?\u00a0 My heart raced as I calmly (posture for public view, a fa\u00e7ade to my racing brain and heart) walked to the office to receive the phone call.\u00a0 I noticed several bosses staring at me as I approached the phone but their glare could not distract me from my worries.\u00a0 Knowing that I had asked my wife to never call me at work, unless there was an emergency, I was bracing myself for some unwelcome news.<\/p>\n
It turned out that the message was urgent, but not devastating.\u00a0 After speaking with my wife, I hung up the phone, avoided the eyes of my bosses, and walked to a nearby water fountain to soothe my now dry mouth.\u00a0 It would have been easy to be upset with my wife as it was not a true emergency, however it was something that was very urgent and she did need to speak to me.\u00a0 At that moment the Lord taught me a lesson I will always remember, to thank God not only for the good we receive, but also for the bad we don\u2019t receive.\u00a0 I was overcome with gratitude and began to repeatedly sing \u201cI want to thank you Jesus!\u00a0 I want to thank you Jesus yes I do, because I know that I can\u2019t make it by myself!\u201d\u00a0 Remembering that it is He who provides for us and protects us and without His protection we would be the victims of the enemy who prowls the earth.\u00a0 Without the protection of God, we would be continuously tortured victims of the enemy of our souls.\u00a0 Yet, though we are all so undeserving, God does provide for us and protect us.\u00a0 Not that everything is a \u201cslice of pie\u201d, but even then His loving hand is with us.<\/p>\n
So I learned to thank God not only for the blessings I receive such as a good job, health and a place to live, but also to thank Him for all the bad things that didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 Really, that is the flip side of the positive things we thank Him for.\u00a0 When, at the end of the day, my loved ones are safe and provided for, I thank God for His provision and protection.\u00a0\u00a0 The flip side of that is endless bad things that could have happened and didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Sometimes it is good to think of those bad things, it helps to keep me grateful and not take for granted the blessings of God.\u00a0 Even those who don\u2019t claim an allegiance to God are thankful that the bad things of life have avoided them.\u00a0 Though they don\u2019t know who to be thankful to, the praise and glory for their good \u201cfate\u201d belongs to God.\u00a0 God should always receive the praise.\u00a0 In all things, praise God!<\/p>\n
Psalm 13:5<\/b> – But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart\u00a0rejoices in your salvation.<\/p>\n
Psalm 68:3-4<\/b> – 3\u00a0<\/sup><\/b>But may the righteous be glad and rejoice\u00a0before God; may they be happy and joyful.\u00a0 4\u00a0<\/sup><\/b>Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before him\u2014his name is the\u00a0Lord.<\/p>\n IHS 12\/27\/13<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once, when working for a large aircraft manufacturing company, a supervisor came to the plane I was working on and told me I had a phone call from my wife.\u00a0 Now this was way before the onslaught of cell phones, so if someone was to be called at work, they would receive the call through…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[79,21,128,47,28,37,23,7,66,14,62,8,44,1019,13,49,95,9,22],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirations","tag-almighty","tag-beauty","tag-christians","tag-courage","tag-enjoy","tag-eternity","tag-father","tag-god","tag-heart","tag-heaven","tag-holy-spirit","tag-jesus","tag-joy","tag-lord","tag-love","tag-love-sweet","tag-mercy","tag-praise","tag-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}